This a part of Light Enterprise Architecture 1. INTRODUCTION Alignment Architecture is very different from solution architecture. It is a matter of how business take advantage of information technology solution rather then how to develop the automation solution. In analogy of a automobile, alignment architecture is how to use the right car rather than how to design a car. The Alignment Architecture facilitate the business community to take advantage of technology evolution. It is an orderly arrangement between the parts of business need and the parts of technology services. It focused on the EA goal to overcome the challenge of stovepipe system. This section introduce Alignment architecture from the aspect of . Why Alignment Architecture . What is Alignment architecture . Alignment Architecture model and framework 2. WHY ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTURE EA has not evolved as expected because the enterprise wide solution architecture approach does not particular appeal to the business community and also post a great change to the engineering community. The business community are indifferent on making the solution. They only concern about how to use the solution. EA as an enterprise wide solution is not in favor by the engineering community either. The complexity to architect the enterprise post a great challenge to the engineering community. It requires significant time and resource and only for an large organization with big money. Buy-in from the stakeholders is even a bigger challenge, after the hard work to architect the enterprise, the architects discovered that buy-in from the stakeholder is not warranted. EA was not initiated to architect the enterprise from the beginning. According to John Zachman, he said: “ Based on the Framework for Enterprise Architecture, I would suggest that Enterprise Architecture is the set of primitive, descriptive artifacts that constitute the knowledge infrastructure of the Enterprise. …Reuse or interoperabitliy does not happen by accident. It is the result of engineering “ [15]. However, It is difficult for the IT community to make transition from the stovepipe culture. The IT community answer the EA call to overcome the challenge of stovepipe with a bigger stovepipe approach. Most of the popular EA approaches such as the US DOD approach and the Open Group TOGAF approach lead EA into this direction. It may satisfy the architects desire of complexity and profundity but does not serve well for the business community. The reason for suggesting the alignment architecture is further elaborated in the following : 2.1 Alignment Architecture serves as the bridge between business and engineering community, On of the major EA goal is to be the bridge between business and engineering community. The gap between business and engineering community has been the major obstacle for business optimization. 2.2 EA for both large and small organization Alignment architecture to keep EA simple and light. The complexity of enterprise wide solution architecture increase exponentially which can only afford by large organization with big money. The complicate analysis frequently become "paralysis by analysis". 2.3 Distinguish EA from enterprise wide solution architecture Under the EA as an enterprise wide solution architecture. EA is no longer an emerging paradigm, because EA look like a solution architecture and sounds like an solution architecture therefor they conclude the EA is nothing new but the same good old solution architecture but bigger in size. 2.4 Enterprise architecture blueprint become obsolete before ink dry Enterprise is a living thing, an enterprise wide solution architecture blueprint become obsolete before the ink dry. Stake holders are hesitate to buy-in an obsoleted architecture blueprint in addition to that it take significant investment of time and resources; it has no value during the design; the design become obsoleted before the ink dry and an large size solution architecture project has a high risk to fail. 3. WHAT IS ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTURE The alignment architecture facilitate the business community on how to take advantage of engineering discipline and technology evolution. It is not an architecture approach for the engineering community on how to design an enterprise wide solution architecture as an large project. DefinitionThe Alignment architecture facilitate the business community on taking advantage of technology evolution. It is an orderly arrangement between the parts of business need and the parts of technology services. The Alignment Architecture is a vertical architecture approach to align application, data and technology solutions to the holistic business architecture. 3.1 Align to the holistic business architecture The Alignment architecture aligns to the holistic business architecture to constitute and enterprise alignment architecture. To be practical and manageable, The enterprise alignment architecture should be wide and thin. 3.2 Facilitate business community in taking advantage of technology evolution Alignment architecture provide a great value to serve as the bridge between business community and engineering community. EA as an enterprise wide solution architecture is an opportunity and challenge to architecture but have limit value to the business community. It contribute to the lack of buy-in from business community. 3.3 Alignment architecture serve both the business community and the technology community. It should be intuitive and comprehensive to the business managers. The Alignment architecture facilitate the business community on how to leverage on engineering solution such as business process engineering, human resources engineering, technology engineering and security engineering to win the edge of competition. 3.4 Alignment architecture does not requires significant initial investment The Alignment architecture does not requires significant time and resources because it is notional instead of an target enterprise architecture blueprint. 4. ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTURE MODEL AND FRAMEWORK4.1 Alignment Architecture model Alignment Architecture adopt NIT Enterprise Architecture model to align technology with business need as shown in the following figure. It was developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 1989, became in the 1990s widely accepted and promoted within the U.S. federal government as an Enterprise Architecture management tool. This model is basically a top down alignment architecture in vertical direction. 4.2 ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTURE FRAMEWORKAlignment Architecture framework (Business/Technology) is vertical architecture to align solution to business. The alignment architecture is considerd as the notional Target architecture which serve as the master plan. It consist of the business process alignment, application alignment, data alignment, security alignment and technology alignment. 5. THE ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTURE APPROACH The alignment architecture adopt the most familiar EA practice to identify the As-is environment and the Target alignment environment as shown on the Alignment Architecture model. However, Organic EA do not recommend to conduct gap analysis and plan for transition at enterprise level. 5.1 A human centric alignment architecture To facilitate the business community, the organic EA take an enterprise mapping approach to map automation service on the holistic business architecture map described in the Holistic Business Architecture section. 5.2 The As-is Alignment Architecture The As-is alignment architecture identify the automation tools used by the business community in business operation. It describe how business community use the automation and other solution to achiever their goal rather than documenting the detail of automation systems. The first generation EA refer this effort to document as-is and frequently evolved to become an inventory and asset management exercise. Many EA projects have bog down at the stage to document as-is without the opportunity to design for the future. .As-is Application Alignment Architecture - Defines what applications are in place to manage the data and support the business functions (i.e., application models). .As-is Data Alignment Architecture - Defines what data is in place to support the business (i.e., data models). . As-is Technology Alignment Architecture - Defines what supporting technology is in place to provide an environment for applications that manage the data and support the business functions (i.e., technology models). 5.3 The Target Alignment Architecture The target alignment architecture serve as the enterprise master plan. It facilitate the business community to take advantage of technology evolution by aligning automation systems to support business operation. A Target Alignment Architecture should be intuitive and comprehensive to the business community. . Target Applications alignment Architecture - Defines the applications needed to manage the data and support the business functions (i.e., applications models). . Target Data Alignment Architecture - Defines the data needed to support the business (i.e., data models). . Target Technology alignment Architecture - Defines the supporting technology needed to provide an environment for applications that manage the data and support the business functions 5.4 Alignment Architecture not for transition plan The high level alignment architecture is not recommended for making transition plan by analyzing the gap between the As-is and Target Alignment. The light EA approach, suggest to plan for transition architecture at the segment architecture level rather than at the enterprise level because most of EA transition plan at the enterprise level has been overwhelming and not practical. 6. ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTURE IS NOT ONLY ABOUT TECHNOLOGY Although the entire discussion on alignment architecture addresses only the technology architecture. However, The Alignment Architecture principle is not only limited to technology but also applies business process, human resource and security as shown on the following figure: . The Business process alignment architecture . The Human resources alignment architecture. . Technology . The Security Alignment